


Fractured Memories

by ThisIsWhyILoveReading



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Not sure if I rated this right, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Rape/Non-con Elements, because Bucky should have come home to Steve okay, because HYDRA sucks, don't think I'll ever write something CACW compliant, multiple black widows are present but not enough so to make them characters, short and sweet stucky fix, these boys deserved so much better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 21:46:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17231768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisIsWhyILoveReading/pseuds/ThisIsWhyILoveReading
Summary: He's seventeen, and Steve pulls away from him panting, eyes wide and lips kissed red, so wrecked and gorgeous that it makes Bucky want to cry, to laugh, to kiss him again and never stop. "What does this make us?" Steve asks quietly, like he's not sure he wants the answer.~ ~ ~A collection of out of order memories from a fractured mind, or: Bucky remembers, and then he comes home.





	Fractured Memories

**Author's Note:**

> (Edited a bit here and there as of May 29, 2019. Still can't figure out how to do italics on AO3 on mobile)
> 
> This is my first work on the archive (and the first fanfic I've actually finished). 
> 
> The memories are placed out of order on purpose, since Bucky's memories come back randomly, but I hope it's not too confusing. 
> 
> There were also a lot more memories that I wanted to include, but I decided to stop procrastinating trying to make it perfect and just post it already.

He’s seventeen, and Steve pulls away from him panting, eyes wide and lips kissed red, so wrecked and gorgeous that it makes Bucky want to cry, to laugh, to kiss him again and never stop. “What does this make us?” Steve asks quietly, like he’s not sure he wants the answer.

Bucky cups his cheek. Looks Steve in the eyes so he knows he’s serious. “Friends. Best friends. Nothing’s ever gonna change that. I’m with you till the end of the line, Stevie.”

~ ~ ~

He’s twenty-two, and he rings the washcloth in the sink, rewets it, and lays it back across Steve’s burning forehead, brushing aside blond locks soaked through with sweat.

“Buck…” Steve croaks, followed by incoherent mumbling that Bucky gives up deciphering after a minute.

“Shh, it’s okay, Stevie. You’re gonna be fine. Just rest, okay? You’ll feel better once you get some rest.”

~ ~ ~

He’s God-knows-how-old, and they set him up in the apartment with Oswald cuffed on the floor, to be set up once the Soldier’s work is done. He’s got his gun trained on the parade across the street, and it’s just the beginning floats now, but when the target comes into view he will take the shot.

~ ~ ~

He’s fourteen, and he swings his fist into some ugly schmuck’s face, the left hook never failing to catch them by surprise. The fucker spits blood and glares at him and for a moment, Bucky thinks he’s gonna have to do that again, but then the guy just spits again and runs off.

Bucky offers a hand to help Steve up, but he predictably bats it away and insists on struggling to his feet on his own, despite the fact that he got kicked in the stomach before Bucky was able to haul the guy off him.

“I had him on the ropes,” Steve says petulantly, and Bucky just sighs, forces a chuckle, though he keeps eyeing the rapidly forming bruises on Steve's cheek and forehead.

“Sure you did,” he tells him, an arm wrapping around Steve’s skinny shoulders to take some of his weight so he isn’t stumbling home.

~ ~ ~

He’s God-knows-how-old and tired as hell but— “The work you do ensures a better future,” his handler tells him. “A safer future. One where we can all live in peace.” He doesn’t know anymore if he believes them, but it’s not the Soldier’s job to wonder about things. He is the drop of poison in a man’s drink, the hand on the trigger in a filthy back alley, the slit across a woman’s throat before she chokes on her own blood. 

He is a weapon, and weapons do not think. Weapons do not feel.  
It does not matter in the least whether he approves of this work or not. It’s not as though he has any choice in his assignments. He hasn’t had a single choice in years.

~ ~ ~

He’s twenty-seven, and he leans against a tree and watches Steve, who's got his eye out for attackers as the rest of the Howlies sleep.

“You should get some rest,” the idiot says, like he doesn’t have bags the size of milk jugs under his own eyes. Bucky points this out, and Steve rolls his drooping eyes. “The serum lets me go longer without sleep. I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.”

“Really, Buck. You worry too much.”

Bucky closes the distance between them, gives Steve a long, hard look, until the oversized punk caves. Bucky expects an excuse of some sort, a defense for why Steve’s running himself ragged so Bucky can refute it and tell Steve he’s being stupid and reckless. What he gets is Steve sighing, lengthy and put-out, and then getting quiet for a while. When Steve does speak again, it’s subdued, a little scared, though he’s clearly trying to hide it. “Do you think we’re gonna make it out of this alive?”

And Bucky’s tempted to say, “Sure, Stevie, don't worry so much.” To lie and say they’re gonna be just fine. He feels like he’s spent his whole life telling Steve they’ll be just fine, and it never convinces either of them. He stares at the ground and says, “I don't know, pal.”

~ ~ ~

He’s sixty-four, he knows because he caught sight of a calendar and it’s fucking 1981. He can remember he was born in 1917 and not much else. It’s been forty fucking years and he’s killed half that number of people. He digs the trackers out of him arm and retches in the back alley behind some restaurant that smells of fish and garbage. He can still feel the handler’s dick in his mouth, can taste the horrifying mix of come and blood as he bit down hard. 

He knows what it’s like to spit out a dismembered lump of flesh, and he’s finding a gun as soon as possible. Should've grabbed one when he escaped, so he can shoot himself in the fucking mouth and get rid of that taste forever.

~ ~ ~

He’s eighteen, and he’s standing in the doorway but can’t make his feet move. Steve takes one look at him, at his tear-stained face and shaking hands, and pulls him into a hug. Bucky’s got the worst sense of deja vu, imagining how Steve had stood on the doorstep of the old brownstone only a year ago with that letter clutched in hands too big for his body. Steve hadn’t cried, hadn’t reacted at all when Bucky opened the door. It was as though he’d removed himself; as though he just wasn’t there.

Bucky doesn't know how Steve did that. He’s been bawling his eyes out for hours, replaying over and over the words of the girl who pulled him aside, some dame he knew from church that his ma had tried to set him up with once.

“James,” she'd said. “Did you hear the news? Your family, they— there was a car crash, killed half a dozen people and I saw your folks’ names on the list, your sisters’ too. Oh, God, James, I’m so, so sorry.”

~ ~ ~

He’s God-knows-how-old, but he feels ancient compared to the group of ten-year-old girls in front of him. He’s been out of cryo for nearly two months already, on account of the Widows needing a trainer.

His handlers have compensated with a new invention, the Chair, to wipe his memories faster than the ice does, if less efficiently. He keeps getting flashes, images of blood and rifles and a tiny, scrawny boy that smiles so prettily, even when his lip is busted and oozes from the movement.

He must’ve been lost in thought again, because the red-haired Widow—Natalia, he reminds himself—has her tiny, cold hand resting on his flesh arm. He’s seen this hand flex around the trigger of a handgun and throw a knife with perfect aim, has seen it curl in perfect form as she pliés.

“Soldat,” she says, quiet and gentle. Always gentle, these girls are. Maybe that’s why it shocks him whenever they prove they’re able to kill a full-grown man in seven seconds flat.

“Sorry,” he whispers, and it comes out in English. He repeats himself in Russian and tries to ignore the girls’ worried faces.

“You were teaching us how to braid our hair so it can’t be pulled during a fight,” the tallest blonde offers—Yelena, he thinks, her name is Yelena. Or is she Alina?

“Thanks.” English again. “Damnit.”

‘You shouldn't curse in front of women, James Buchanan.’

“Sorry.”

The Widows nod and say it’s alright, like they always do. He doubts this, but there’s not much he can do to fix it, so he sighs and tries to reassert himself in the lesson.

~ ~ ~

He’s twenty-seven, and he can't stop staring at Stevie, his best friend who’s somehow fucking ginormous now. Steve says it’s permanent, as far as he knows, so Bucky figures he'd better get used to it.

Steve’s sitting on the edge of Bucky’s cot, speaking with the nurse until finally she leaves, and then they’re alone. The first thing Steve does is let out a sigh and lower his head till it’s resting against Bucky’s. He’s silent for a long time, and Bucky thinks maybe he’s just tired (Bucky, for one, could sleep for two weeks straight and still be exhausted), but then a tear slides down Steve’s perfect cheek and his breath hitches.

“Hey,” Bucky whispers, his voice a little hoarse from the tears welling in his own eyes, but Steve needs him to be the strong one right now. God knows Steve has been strong for long enough; he deserves to be the one to break, for once. “Hey, it’s okay, Stevie. I’m right here.” He lifts a hand and cups Steve’s cheek, wiping at the tear tracks, but Steve only cries harder.

“They told me— you were dead—” he chokes out between sobs.

Bucky surges forward to pull Steve close, holding him tight and murmuring in his ear that that’s all over, they’re together again, they’re safe. Maybe he’s trying to convince himself, too. “Not the end of the line yet,” he murmurs into Steve’s neck.

~ ~ ~

He’s ninety-eight, and he picks the lock in Steve’s apartment, trying not to think too hard about the fact that anyone could’ve broken in here and killed Steve, and how could Steve be this oblivious? The blond lump on the bed doesn’t even stir as Bucky—because he’s Bucky now, even if he wasn’t for a while; even if he can never be the same—shuts the window behind him and puts on his own, much stronger lock.

He pads over to the bed, boots silent on the carpet, and sinks to the floor near Steve’s chest to undo them. The quiet noises of zippers and material finally get Steve to stir, and he mutters, still probably half-asleep, “Buck? Whazzit? Wha’ you doin’ home so late?”

“Sorry, pal. Got held up,” he whispers back, a grin tugging at his lips despite himself.

Steve mumbles something incomprehensible into the pillow, then suddenly he’s letting out a little gasp, jolting upright with enough force to jostle Bucky where he’s leaning against the bed.

“Bucky?” Steve whispers, eyes wide and disbelieving.

“Not quite,” he admits quietly, memories of the past seventy years worth of horrors flickering through his head. He discards his boots on the floor and twists to meet Steve’s gaze. “But… close enough, I hope.”

That’s all it takes for Steve to lurch forward, wrapping his huge arms around Bucky like a vice and burying his face in Bucky’s neck. Bucky raises his own arms, flesh and metal, and lugs Steve’s massive body up so the idiot’s not half-hanging off the bed. They end up with Steve’s back propped against the headboard, Bucky straddling his lap. Steve sniffles and tightens his grip.

“Hell,” he whispers into Bucky’s neck. “I missed you so fucking much. I thought…” He breathes in shakily and presses a kiss to Bucky’s skin—close-mouthed and chaste, but it still burns something fierce.

“Not the end of the line yet,” Bucky murmurs against the side of Steve’s head, nose buried in his hair.

Steve lets out a broken sort of chuckle, his eyes wet where they’re pressed to Bucky’s neck. “Really thought it might’ve been, for a while there.”

Bucky squeezes him a little tighter. “Can’t get rid of me that easy. Just keep showin’ up like a bad penny.”

Steve breathes in shakily, pulling away just far enough to meet Bucky’s eyes. He rests their foreheads together and they sit there for a long minute, just holding each other and breathing the same air. And then, as if he can’t help himself, Steve starts to say, “I'm so sorry—”

“Don't,” Bucky cuts him off, perhaps a bit harsher than intended. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. None of it was your fault.”

“I should've looked for you!”

“You had no way of knowing.”

“Still, I should’ve—”

“Steve.” Bucky fixes a stern gaze on him, squeezes both his shoulders. “We’ve both got enough guilt to last us another seventy fucking years. Let’s not waste time saying sorry, okay?”

Steve nods, raising a hand to wipe the tear tracks from his cheeks. Bucky catches the hand halfway through its descent, pressing a kiss to Steve’s knuckles, which earns him a small smile.

Steve shifts downward until they’re both lying flat on the bed, curled toward each other like parentheses. He wraps an arm around Bucky’s waist and pulls their bodies flush, exhaling softly and letting his eyes drift closed.

And that’s how Bucky falls asleep: with Steve Rogers, the love of his life, warm and safe beside him. He listens to the rhythmic sound of his best friend’s breathing and sleeps knowing he’s finally home.

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a lot (a LOT) of half-done fics in the works (both stucky and other pairings), and hopefully I'll be able to finish some of them like I finally finished this one.
> 
> I'm @reallygoodandoriginalusername on Tumblr. I don't post a lot but I'd still love if you come say hi!


End file.
